The Media Must Face Consequences for the Russia Hoax - Andrew Syrios

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by Andrew Syrios

The mainstream liberal press has betrayed the trust of the American people in a cynical ploy to try to remove a President they openly hate while lining their own pockets.

So, the Mueller report finally dropped and lo-and-behold, the most obvious hoax in recent history turned out to be a hoax. For all of Trump’s faults, collusion and obstruction aren’t among them.

The various excuses by those who perpetuated this fraud have been fascinating to behold. Many of the poor souls who fell for this farce hold out hope. Others who perpetuated continue to double down. Mother Jones, for example, says that despite Mueller’s findings, “ Trump and his gang betrayed the United States in the greatest scandal in American history.” Many others are demanding we #ReleaseTheFullMuellerReport because obviously this is only the “Barr Report.” #NeverTrump neocon Jennifer Rubin, for example, has a pinned tweet stating “It would behoove the media to point out it is FALSE that Mueller exonerated Trump of obstruction. The report explicitly said that, as Barr quoted. BARR exonerated Trump which is ridiculous.”

Ridiculous, I tell you!

Others have shifted their attention to the Southern District of New York as if this whole charade didn’t even happen. Others are downplaying the results as if the Democrats, neocons and former intelligence officials weren’t yelling “treason, treason, treason” for years now. I’ll remind you that Time magazine had a frontpage cover of the Kremlin merging with the White House!

Former CIA director John Brennan (who engaged in illegal torture, illegally spied on the Senate when they were investigating that and then perjured himself about it), blithely opined that “I suspected there was more than there actually was.” No big deal, right John?

This is the same guy who called Trump a “traitor” and confidently predicted there would be more indictments.

Other reactions have been even more humorous, such as Rachel Maddow holding back tears as she briefed her audience on the report. Her fragile emotional state makes sense. After all, Maddow has dedicated virtually every show to the Russia hoax for the last two years. She even asked, with a straight face, what you would do if Russia hacked our power grid in the middle of a cold front because “Russia can just shut off the electricity. They have that ability now.”

Somehow Maddow wasn’t the worst, though. Jonathan Chait argued that it was possible Trump had been a Russian asset since 1987!

So, the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, but the Kremlin was still trying to groom a Manchurian Candidate to take power in the United States 30 years later… There is simply no way the first round of McCarthyism was ever this over-the-top and stupid. At least the first go of McCarthyism had some truth to the matter as the Venona Project showed there were plenty of Soviet spies implanted throughout the federal government at the time.

Chris Matthews threw a temper tantrum because Mueller didn’t personally interview Trump and instead allowed written answers to his questions. And Bill Maher stubbornly noted that “I don’t need the Mueller report to know Trump is a traitor.”

Who needs evidence when you have feelings, right?

Remember when the left was making cringy memes of “Mueller time” or when SNL sang an even more cringeworthy “All I Want for Christmas is Mueller” bit last December?

Many supposedly respectable figures on the left gave credibility to the most absurd conspiracy theorists such as Seth Abramson, The Palmer Report and Louis Mensch; who claimed that Putin assassinated Andrew Breitbart to put Steve Bannon in charge of Breitbart.com.

Then of course there are the actual politicians. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has been on network television too many times to count blabbing about “collusion” this and “conspiracy” that. In February of this year, he said there is evidence “in plain sight” of collusion. Now, he’s giving some mealy-mouthed blather about how “the country must see the evidence.” Trump must be proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt, I guess.

Senator Richard Blumenthal said “there are indictments in this President’s future. They’re coming.” Congressman Eric Swalwell confidently stated that “…Donald Trump was part of a criminal campaign, a criminal transition and now presides over a criminal presidency.”

With the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, every serious Democratic contender for President pushed the Russia hoax. And yet, here we are. Not a single American citizen has been convicted, let alone indicted for colluding with the Russians to steal the 2016 election. Not one.

That’s after over two years, millions of dollars spent, a Congressional investigation, a Senate investigation and a Special Counsel investigation initiated on dubious grounds of which 13 of its 18 prosecutors were registered Democrats. Mueller’s investigation itself issued 2800 subpoenas.

And yet, not one.

Instead we have a few Russian bot farms, a handful of process crimes, and some decade-old financial misdeeds. All hat, no cattle to say the least.

The honest leftist Michael Tracey has summed up this dumpster fire as well as anyone could,

“The entire Trump-Russia saga was predicated on what became an impenetrable self-reinforcing cycle of confirmation bias and group think: Journalists scoured the internet for signs of a conspiracy, which were then picked up on by the FBI and/or CIA, and then the FBI and/or CIA’s resulting investigative actions would be taken as confirmation by the journalists that their theories were vindicated. It was mind-boggling to behold. Discerning media members should have been attuned to this dynamic, because it resulted in a profound disservice being done to the country on a scale that is almost too vast to properly conceptualize. But inexcusably, they chose to keep the fantasy going.”

We should now remember that CNN was at the forefront of demanding that Alex Jones be censored off all social media for pushing conspiracy theories. They succeeded in that. After all, conspiracy theories are dangerous. The Sandy Hook conspiracy theory inspired nutjobs to horribly harass the victim’s families.

On a related note, James Hodgkinson was radicalized by the mainstream press and noted “one of my favorite TV shows is ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’” before attempting to assassinate dozens of Republican senators and congressmen.

Alex Jones certainly has some nutty conspiracy theories. But as we’ve seen, he can barely keep up with the mainstream press!

There have to be very serious consequences for this. In a just world, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and just about every host at CNN and MSNBC would be fired immediately and their accounts censored off of social media for pushing divisive fake news and damaging conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, that world doesn’t exist.

Still, this is a “never forget” moment. The blinding trust in these liberal “defenders of democracy” must be eroded. Never again can we take their word for what is “fake news” and what is not. Never again can we allow them to dictate who should be on social media and should not be.

The mainstream liberal press has betrayed the trust of the American people in a cynical ploy to try to remove a President they openly hate while lining their own pockets. Don’t allow them to move on to the next topic as if nothing happened. Their credibility is gone. Don’t let them forget it.

Andrew Syrios

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/the_media_must_face_consequences_for_the_russia_hoax.html

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Immigration Fraud Threatens National Security - Michael Cutler

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by Michael Cutler

Soldiers at Fort Bragg arrested for alleged marriage fraud conspiracy.

With nearly all of the focus of the immigration debate centering on the abject lack of security along the U.S./Mexico border, other failures of the overwhelmed immigration system are being utterly ignored. Make no mistake: that dangerous border must be made secure against the illegal and uninspected entry of aliens, but the other failures of the immigration system are no less serious and pose no less of a threat.

The majority of these failures center on the lack of resources for the enforcement of our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States, an issue I addressed in my recent article about the importance of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

In addition to arresting illegal aliens, there are many other elements critical to the interior enforcement mission. One of the most critical is to conduct investigations to uncover immigration fraud, whereby aliens are provided with various immigration benefits such as being granted political asylum, lawful immigrant status and even U.S. citizenship to which they would not be entitled if all of the relevant material facts were known.

Such investigations are conducted by a subdivision of ICE known as HSI (Homeland Security Investigations).

On January 27, 2019 military.com published an article, "Marriage Scam Paired Fort Bragg Soldiers with Immigrants, Feds Say" that had previously appeared in the News & Observer and focused on a marriage fraud ring that was allegedly operating at Fort Bragg that would have provided aliens with green cards and access to the military base.

Here is how this report began:

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A sergeant and a private at Fort Bragg sought to arrange sham marriages between soldiers and immigrants, offering cash, housing benefits and furniture as incentive for potential brides, according to federal court documents.

Arrest warrants were issued last week for Sgt. Edward Kumi Anguah, described as "the facilitator" of the conspiracy, and Pvt. Ahmid Mohammed-Murtada, a recently naturalized citizen from Ghana serving in a Fort Bragg Army unit, court records show.

The investigation began in December when an agent for the Department of Homeland Security interviewed Pvt. Endasia East about having an affair with a single soldier while married to Sulemana Ibrahim, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

During that interview, "she confirmed the marriage was in fact fraudulent," according to court records.

On February 22, 2019 the Military Times reported on the same investigation: "Fort Bragg soldiers indicted in marriage and immigration fraud sting," which reported in part on the magnitude of punishment that the defendants in this case face:

Anguah faces up to 25 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for conspiracy to commit marriage fraud, harboring an alien to come to the U.S. and visa fraud, according to the release.

Hoomkwap and Murtadaas faces 15 years and a $250,000 fine for conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and harboring certain aliens to come to the U.S.

Ibrahim faces 35 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for conspiracy to commit marriage fraud, marriage fraud, harboring certain aliens to come to the U.S., visa fraud and making false statements under oath.

These penalties are extremely serious, befitting the nature of the crimes that were allegedly committed, and stand in stark contrast with the way a number of films have trivialized the crime of marriage fraud, in which an American marries an illegal alien, not out of love but to prevent the alien from being deported, as the basis for “romantic comedies.” Consider Green Card which starred Gerard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell, and the film The Proposal which featured Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson and Betty White.

For many years the mainstream media and Hollywood have distorted the truth about immigration in many ways. Immigration law enforcement agents have been vilified in numerous films, some of which featured big-name stars, such as Crossing Over starring Harrison Ford.

The 9/11 Commission had a far more sobering take on marriage fraud and other forms of immigration fraud. The concerns of the Commission served as the premise of my article, "Immigration Fraud:  Lies That Kill."

Consider this quote from the government report that was prepared by the 9/11 Commission staff, 9/11 and  Terrorist Travel:

Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding, go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.

Now let’s go back to the news report about the alleged marriage fraud ring at Fort Bragg.

As a former INS agent, the first issue that caught my eye was the fact that at least one of the key players in the alleged conspiracy is himself a naturalized citizen. Hopefully the HSI agents are assiduously reviewing his immigration file to determine if he committed immigration fraud in order to acquire lawful immigrant status and subsequent U.S. citizenship.

U.S. citizenship provides aliens with the “keys to the kingdom.” In the years since the 9/11 Commission wrapped up its work, a number of terror attacks in the United States states have been carried out by aliens who had been granted political asylum, lawful immigrant status and even U.S. citizenship.

The challenge for USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), the division of DHS that adjudicates applications for immigration benefits, is being overwhelmed by millions of applications that they adjudicate each year with minimal resources to verify the information contained in those applications. 

Although the Immigration and Nationality Act requires that Good Moral Character investigations be conducted for each naturalization case, today little more can be done than run fingerprints and query databases with relatively few if any actual field investigations conducted to weed out fraud.

It is also worth noting that according to a New York Times article published in May 2015, when Osama bin Laden’s compound was raided by Navy Seals on May 1, 2011, among the documents found in bin Laden’s personal library was a copy of the 9/11 Commission Report, three reports on Al Qaeda by the Congressional Research Service, and an application for United States citizenship. 

I compare the plight of the hapless Adjudications Officers of USCIS with the hilarious episode of I Love Lucy in which Lucy and her friend Ethel are hired to wrap candy in a factory. The candy hurtles at them on a conveyor belt that continues to accelerate until all they can do is either eat the candy or stuff them into their clothes.

However, the prospect of overwhelmed Adjudications Officers approving applications because they cannot keep up with the tsunami of applications is no laughing matter.

In the months after the terror attacks of 9/11 we were constantly reminded that to succeed, the terrorists only need to “get it right” once. Each immigration application potentially provides that opportunity the terrorists eagerly seek.

Michael Cutler

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273302/immigration-fraud-threatens-national-security-michael-cutler

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Minnesota Lawmakers Nominate Anti-Semites to Fight Anti-Semitism - Sam Westrop

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by Sam Westrop

The proposed legislation specifically calls for taskforce leaders to include the executive directors of Darul Farooq Center, the Islamic Association of North America, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS).

Two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota have put forward a bill nominating anti-Semitic Islamist organizations—and specifically, their demonstrably anti-Semitic officials—to become members of a new "taskforce on the consequences of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism."

Sponsored by Democratic Representatives Jay Xiong, Carlos Mariani and Aisha Gomez, H.F 2587 seeks to "analyze the impact of Islamophobia and antisemitism, recommend actions to improve the safety of Minnesota's Muslim and Jewish communities, increase participation by the Muslim and Jewish communities in civic life, and recommend possible legislative action."

In the wake of the New Zealand massacre by a self-proclaimed "eco-fascist," and with rising anti-Semitism, including from Minnesota's own U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who could object to the Minnesota legislature seeking to combat hate?

But there is one very good reason to be concerned: The bill seeks to place anti-Semitic activists from anti-Semitic organizations on the taskforce. The proposed legislation specifically calls for taskforce leaders to include the executive directors of Darul Farooq Center, the Islamic Association of North America, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS).

MAS's Minnesota branch is led by Asad Zaman. Despite his nomination to the proposed taskforce, Zaman is not shy about his views on Jews and Islamism. His Facebook account is replete with anti-Semitism, apologism for Hamas and support for convicted war criminals.

Posts promoted by Zaman include links to a neo-Nazi, Holocaust-denial website, which promotes viciously anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, as well as blogs that claim that American presidents "depend upon the votes and influence of Jews in New York who support Israel, have always been ready to give the Israelis the weapons to enable them pursue this evil. In effect, U.S. foreign policy is determined by Israel."

Zaman's obsession with Jews includes hundreds of posts praising fringe groups of anti-Zionist Jews as (in implicit contrast with mainstream Jewish organization) "Jews of conscience" and "integrity."

Zaman has written: "It is a tactic of the Israeli lobby to label those whom they cannot shut up as anti-Semites. (please check out the Hasbara manual)."

Although MAS was established by the Muslim Brotherhood, Zaman is a vocal supporter of its ideological cousin, Jamaat-e-Islami—a South Asian Islamist movement responsible for the mass murder of tens of thousands of civilians during Bangaldesh's 1971 Liberation War. Zaman praises these mass murderers, referring to its former leader, Moitur Rahman Nizami (who was executed for his part in the genocide) as a "great shaheed [martyr]."

Zaman has also shared posts mourning other Jamaat-e-islami leaders authored by Islami Chhatra Shabir, Jamaat's student branch, which Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre named in 2014 as the third-most violent non-state armed group in the world.

In light of all his anti-Semitism and support for violent Islamist causes, the MAS-MN director's apologism for the designated terrorist group Hamas is not particularly surprising. He writes that: "It is Israel, not Hamas, that uses human shields. And Israel has a long track record of blaming others for the very crimes it commits." Zaman also promoted a post from Hamas's official website mourning the execution of the Jamaati war criminal Nizami.

CAIR Minnesota is also a worrying candidate to control a taskforce against anti-Semitism. Along with its parent organization's long history of ties to terror and the overt anti-Semitism of its officials, CAIR Minnesota also regularly invites anti-Jewish speakers to address its events. Recent examples include Hatem Bazian, who tweeted two anti-Semitic images that accuse "Ashke-Nazis" of rape, murder and organ-trafficking; as well as Hussam Ayloush, director of CAIR's Los Angeles branch, who, in 2018, called for Israel to be "terminated" and expressed support for Hamas supporters convicted of financing terrorism.

Both CAIR and MAS will be familiar to many Americans, and certainly to law enforcement. Officials of both MAS and CAIR were named by federal prosecutors as unindicted coconspirators during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial, which uncovered a vast support network for the designated, genocidally anti-Semitic, terror organization Hamas. In 2014, the United Arab Emirates named both CAIR and MAS as terrorist organizations.

The other two groups named in the bill also have their problems. The Islamic Association of North America (formerly known as the North American Council of Somali Imams) has backed BDS efforts against Israel and appears to be in close contact with the anti-Semitic Turkish regime.

The other, Dar Al-Farooq, is a prominent Minnesota mosque mostly serving Somali congregants. Its director, who is also nominated to join the taskforce, is Mohamed Omar. On social media, Omar has posted videos about "apartheid Israel," along with rants by the fringe Neturei Karta sect, claiming that Jews in Israel rape and pillage. Neturei Karta has been a strong supporter of the Iranian regime, as well as far-right activists in Europe. In 2006, one of its leading officials stated that Holocaust victims "deserved it."

The taskforce will be responsible for "reviewing" Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in Minnesota. It will further "recommend outreach programs," recommend "training for law enforcement, city and county attorney offices, public defender offices, and the courts," sponsor public campaigns, and review "existing Minnesota law and [propose] amendments or new statutory provisions."

While the bill also calls for Jewish members to be appointed to the taskforce, it refrains from proposing specific organizations, instead calling for "two rabbis" and "the executive director of two Jewish community organizations." (One wonders who will be responsible for deciding which rabbis and organizations.)

Officials from the nominated organizations are all strong supporters of Rep. Ilhan Omar, and have denounced accusations that she is anti-Semitic as a "distraction." It is clear that anti-Semitic Islamists in Minnesota are behind this effort. It is even clearer that Minnesota's representatives should not be tasking anti-Semites with managing and defining the threat of anti-Semitism. 


Sam Westrop is director of Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/58043/minnesota-lawmakers-nominate-anti-semites

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Eric Holder: America Never Great - Matthew Vadum

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by Matthew Vadum

A God complex on full display.

America has never been “great” and those who embrace the Trump campaign slogan “Make America Great Again,” or MAGA, are racists, sexists, and homophobes, disgraced former Attorney General Eric Holder told his ideological comrades at MSNBC in an interview this week.

Since leaving office Holder has been spending his time plotting to turn the U.S. into a one-party state. He recently said the next Democrat president should pack the Supreme Court with leftists to combat what he called Republicans’ “power-grabbing antics.” Holder is now chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a political action committee that claims “the political system is rigged,” and “the fight to fix it is now.”

But what is particularly disturbing is that Holder, cited with contempt by Congress and nearly impeached and who spent his time in office stirring up racial animosity for political advantage –he infamously called America “a nation of cowards” on issues involving race— is not an outlier on the Left with his ugly, anti-American views. His sentiments are largely embraced by the Democratic Party’s base across the country, the mainstream media, Hollywood, academia, and more or less by all those now running for the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination.

And if his repugnant opinions and leftist radicalism weren’t bad enough, his angry, sanctimonious, stomach-turning self-righteousness quite rightly makes conservatives want to throw things at their televisions.

“Race is still a prime determinant in this country,” the egomaniacal Holder said on the “The Beat with Ari Melber.”

Host Ari Melber said: “There’s a lot of talk about America being a leader as a democracy, quote unquote, in the 1800s when women and African-Americans couldn’t vote. What kind of democracy is that?”

“Oh that’s exactly right,” Holder replied.

“That’s when I hear these things about let’s ‘Make America Great Again,’ and I think to myself, exactly when did you think America was great? It certainly wasn’t when people were enslaved. It certainly wasn’t when women didn’t have the right to vote. It certainly wasn’t when the LGBT community was denied the rights to which it was entitled.”

“Does that phrase echo as discrimination in your ears?” Melber asked.

“It takes us back to, I think, an American past that never in fact really existed, this notion of greatness,” Holder said.

“America’s done superb things, has done great things and it has been a leader in a whole range of things. But we’re always a work in process and looking back ‘Make America Great Again’ is inconsistent with who we are as Americans at our best where we look at the uncertain future, embrace it, and make it our own.”

Let’s break down what Holder is actually saying here.

Holder’s statement indicates he really believes that if America is great at all, it only got that way because of the work he did as America’s attorney general in the Obama era.

The clue here is his comment that America wasn’t great “when the LGBT community was denied the rights to which it was entitled.”

So according to his reasoning, America was worthless until June 26, 2015, when “the LGBT community” secured the “rights to which it was entitled” because the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in its landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.

To discard everything good that has happened in this country in the 238 years and 357 days intervening between Independence and the commencement of Holder’s Year Zero on June 26, 2015, is absurd in the extreme.

Regardless of where you may stand on the issue of same-sex marriage, to claim America wasn’t a great country before it embraced same-sex marriage, is the height of pigheadedness and anti-American, know-nothing presentism.

Holder seems to think he is America’s messiah, delivering it from the darkness of the pre-Obergefell years, because he played a huge role in setting in motion the process by which the Supreme Court enshrined same-sex marriage as the law of the land.

Look at the chronology here.

The case was argued before the Supreme Court on April 28, 2015 and decided June 26, 2015.

Holder left the attorney general’s office on April 27, 2015, the day before his subordinate, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., presented pro-same-sex marriage arguments at the Obergefell hearing. (View the court transcript here.)

Before leaving as AG, Holder wrote an op-ed published March 2, 2015, by USA Today, in which he made it clear the Obama administration believed state-level same-sex marriage bans were unconstitutional and promising to file a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court making that argument, which he in fact did four days later.

Holder’s successor at the Department of Justice, Loretta Lynch, specifically gave Holder credit for the legal victory the day Obergefell was decided.

“The Justice Department is proud to have been a part of this journey,” she said, “from Attorney General Eric Holder’s unwavering leadership in advancing the cause of equality to the groundbreaking progress we have witnessed today.”

Holder, who recently decided against running for president in 2020, isn’t alone in his leftist contempt for America.

On the campaign trail in 2008, Michelle Obama implied the United States was a bad country until it began to take her husband’s candidacy for president seriously.

“For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback," she said.

New York’s demagogic left-wing governor, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, took some well-deserved heat last year when he trashed his own country in order to attack President Trump.

“We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great,” Cuomo said last summer.

“We have not reached greatness, we will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged, we will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping against women, 51 percent of our population, is gone and every woman’s full potential is realized and unleashed and every woman is making her full contribution,” he said.

The hysteria that Trump-haters have been whipping up against MAGA hat-wearing Trump supporters and the violence that accompanies it probably won’t die down anytime soon.

But thanks to Eric Holder’s candor, now we know who to blame for it.

Matthew Vadum, formerly senior vice president at the investigative think tank Capital Research Center, is an award-winning investigative reporter and author of the book, "Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts Are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers."

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273320/eric-holder-america-never-great-matthew-vadum

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Washington Recognizes the Golan as Part of Israel (Part One) - Hugh Fitzgerald

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by Hugh Fitzgerald

The United States, in one of its most important decisions concerning Israel and the Arabs, on March 21 recognized the Golan as an integral  part of Israel. The case for that recognition is very strong.

In June 1967, Israel was forced to fight a three-front war of self-defense against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. It managed to defeat all three of its enemies within six days. In its victory, it took the Sinai from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. It is the Golan that has just been in the news, for the American government has at long last recognized the Golan as part of Israel.

The Golan Heights are particularly important for Israel’s security. They loom over Israel on one side and Syria on the other. At its highest point, on Mount Hermon, the Golan is more than 9,000 feet high. The country that controls the Golan has a huge advantage over its enemy below. For nearly twenty years, that country was Syria. From 1948 to 1967, the Syrians had used the Golan for one main purpose: to shell the Israeli farmers far below. Though there are different views in Israel on the disposition of the West Bank, there was no disagreement when Israel formally annexed the Golan in 1981.

Since 1981 no other countries have recognized the legitimacy of Israel’s annexation of the Golan, until just now. The United States, in one of its most important decisions concerning Israel and the Arabs, on March 21 recognized the Golan as an integral  part of Israel. The case for that recognition is very strong.

First, the Golan was won by Israel in a war of self-defense against three Arab aggressors. The 1967 war effectively began when Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who declared a blockade to prevent Israeli ships from using the Straits of Tiran, moved tens of thousands of Egyptian troops deep into the Sinai, while demanding, and getting, the removal of U.N. peacekeepers so that his army, as he promised to hysterical Cairene crowds, could march north unhindered and destroy the Jewish state. Meanwhile, Syrian troops and artillery on the heavily-fortified Golan prepared for attack, but Israel attacked first and pushed the Syrians off the Golan and and back into Syria. Given the Golan’s enormous military value, in 1981, Israel formally annexed that plateau that loomed over the Galilee.

It has long been a principle of public international law that when an aggressor state loses in a war, the victor has a right to keep territory won in that war. For if it were not the case, if any aggressor who lost a war could be assured of having territory he lost returned to him, there would be little incentive for a would-be aggressor not to engage in war. The map of the world has been drawn and re-drawn by wars. Think of how much territory the Germans permanently lost after World War II, fully 25% of the territory of prewar Weimar Germany, to Poland (East Prussia) and the Soviet Union (among other territories it won, Russia holds onto Kaliningrad, the former Königsberg, which is totally surrounded by Poland and Lithuania). Or take the example provided by the United States. By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, which ended the Mexican-American War,  the U.S. gained the land that makes up all or parts of present-day Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. By its victory in the Spanish-American War, the United States won Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines as territories.

Another example is Alto Adige, which under Austrian rule had been  known as the Sudtirol, which was awarded after World War Ito Italy, one of the victorious Allies, by the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. No one then, save for the Austrians themselves, found the Italian takeover of the Alto Adige as objectionable, and now everyone concedes that it is an integral part of Italy.

That was the accepted rule in international law. But things changed when it came to dealing with the consequences of Israel’s spectacular victory in the Six-Day War. Until then, the so-called “international community” had raised no objections to the acquisition of territory by those who were victorious in a war of self-defense. With Israel, things would be different.

After the Six-Day War, there was much debate and wrangling at the U.N. as to how to treat the territories Israel had won. Resolution 242 was the result. The Resolution contains a clause emphasizing “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” This clause has been endlessly trotted out by the Arab side, but it conflicts with two other, even more important parts of Resolution 242. The first is the call for the “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” The phrase “from territories” was fought over; the Arabs wanted the main drafter of the document, the British U.N. Ambassador Lord Caradon, to put in the words “all the” or “the,” so that the phrase would now call for “withdrawal from all the territories” or “withdrawal from the territories.” This Lord Caradon most explicitly refused to do; he said that he knew that that would be tantamount to pushing Israel back into the unacceptable 1949 Armistice Lines.

Here are Lord Caradon’s later discussions of the meaning of 242:

The chief drafter of 242 was Britain’s permanent representative to the UN, Lord Caradon (Hugh Mackintosh Foot). In a February 1973 interview with Israel Radio, he noted that “the essential phrase which is not sufficiently recognized is that withdrawal should take place to secure and recognized boundaries, and these words were very carefully chosen: They have to be secure and they have to be recognized. They will not be secure unless they are recognized.
And that is why one has to work for agreement. This is essential.
I would defend absolutely what we did. It was not for us to lay down exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border. It is where troops had to stop in 1949, just where they happened to be that night. That is not a permanent boundary.”
On June 12, 1974, Lord Caradon told Beirut’s Daily Star that “it would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of 4 June 1967 because those positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places the soldiers of each side happened to be the day the fighting stopped in 1949.
They were just armistice lines. That’s why we didn’t demand that the Israelis return to them and I think we were right not to.
In a 1976 interview published by the Journal of Palestine Studies, Lord Caradon was asked why his resolution mentions withdrawal from “occupied territories” rather than from “the occupied territories.” He responded: “We could have said: well, you go back to the 1967 line. But I know the 1967 line, and it’s a rotten line. You couldn’t have a worse line for a permanent international boundary. It’s where the troops happened to be on a certain night in 1949. It’s got no relation to the needs of the situation.
The demand for an Israeli retreat to “secure and recognized boundaries,” Lord Caradon stressed, was not meaningless verbiage: “We deliberately did not say that the old line [the June 4, 1967, line, i.e., the 1949 armistice line], where the troops happened to be on that particular night many years ago, was an ideal demarcation line.”
Lord Caradon reiterated the essence of the 242 logic on The Mac- Neil/Lehrer Report, on March 30, 1978: “We didn’t say there should be a withdrawal to the ‘67 line; we did not put the ‘the’ in, we did not say ‘all the territories’ deliberately. We all knew that the boundaries of ‘67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers; they were a cease-fire line of a couple of decades earlier… We did not say that the ‘67 lines must be forever.

To summarize:

According to the traditional laws of war and peace, Israel has at least as good a claim to the Golan Heights as Russia does to Kaliningrad (which it took from Nazi Germany in World War II),  or perhaps even better, because while Kaliningrad could not possibly again become a place from which Germany might attack Russia, with which the city does not even share a border, if the Golan were returned to Syria, it would inevitably again become a place from which the Syrians would resume their shelling. Israel has at least as good a claim to the Golan as the United States did in 1848 to all or parts of present-day Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, which it won in the Mexican-American War. Israel has at least as good a claim to the Golan, a place from which attacks had repeatedly been launched by the Syrians, as Italy does to the Alto Adige, which it won during the First World War, and from which no Austrian attacks had come.

Lord Caradon stressed that Israel was not obligated by Resolution 242 to return to the pre-1967 armistice lines, and had a right to live in “secure and recognized boundaries.” “Secure” boundaries means “defensible” borders, and military control of the Golan Heights, any fair-minded visitor would conclude, is essential to Israel’s defense.


Hugh Fitzgerald

Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/03/hugh-fitzgerald-washington-recognizes-the-golan-as-part-of-israel-part-one

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Hamas TV: “Scatter” Israeli body parts, “make skulls fly in the sky” - Christine Douglass-Williams

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by Christine Douglass-Williams

Hamas is out for Jewish blood - the bloodier the better

Hamas lies habitually. It initially stated that “the rocket launched from Gaza that leveled a private home in central Israel on Monday was a mistake and that Hamas had ‘no interest’ in firing projectiles at Israel.”

Meanwhile, while Hamas was busy “launching missiles at Israel’s civilian population…. Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV was broadcasting calls to murder Israelis.” Those included songs about putting on suicide belts and calls to “scatter the enemies’ body parts, make the skulls fly in the sky.”

Earlier this month, Al Aqsa TV network was designated a terror organization by Israel.
Reminder: CAIR and its affiliates are connected to Hamas.



“Hamas: ‘Scatter the enemies’ body parts, make the skulls fly in the sky,'” by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch, March 26, 2019:

While Hamas was launching missiles at Israel’s civilian population yesterday, Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV was broadcasting calls to murder Israelis. The following song calling to put on suicide belts and “scatter the enemies’ body parts, make the skulls fly in the sky,” is one example:
The music video includes many images of violence and actual terror attacks. Among the visuals, are 3 stabbings, 2 car rammings, explosions, and footage of the oldest Hamas female suicide bomber, 57-year-old Fatima Omar Mahmoud Al-Najjar, who in 2006 blew herself up near Israeli soldiers, injuring two. Other images show people holding big knives and guns, coinciding with the lyrics “stab, bomb, and make eyes weep.”
The song begins with two short interviews with released female prisoners, one of whom attempted to carry out a suicide attack. She explains that her goal was to “kill as many Jews as possible.”

Christine Douglass-Williams

Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/03/hamas-tv-scatter-israeli-body-parts-make-skulls-fly-in-the-sky

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Another anti-Semite pops up to run with the Democrats for Senate: Valerie Plame - Monica Showalter

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by Monica Showalter

After Omar, they're multiplying on the Democrat side.

Do the Democrats have an anti-Semitism problem?

Seems that Rep. Ilhan Omar's "pioneering" on that sick front has drawn other anti-Semites to the party. Daniel Greenfield at Frontline has a report:

Just as the Dems were recovering from their anti-Semitism controversy with Rep. Omar, they've got an anti-Semitic bigot with name recognition running for Senate in New Mexico.
It's yesterday's lefty heroine, Valerie Plame, covert secret agent and inspiration for James Bond who inspired one of the more unintentionally hilarious lefty Bush era movies (one that Aaron Sorkin would probably like to forget.)

Plame was force to apologize after sharing on Twitter an anti-Semitic article from the UNZ Review entitled "America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars." The article stated that Jews "own the media," that they should wear labels while on national television, and that their beliefs were as dangerous as "a bottle of rat poison."

Her initial response was: "First of all, calm down. Re-tweets don't imply endorsement. Yes, very provocative, but thoughtful. Many neocon hawks ARE Jewish."

Funny how these scandals just "vanish" when they involve lefties.

And funnier still, a message seems to have gone out to the nation's anti-Semites that it's fine to return to the fold, joining the Democrats. Omar paved the way.

What's striking here is that it shows how multi-fold the anti-Semitism of the Democrats is now becoming.

Omar's variety, buttressed by her claims about Israeli treatment of Palestinians, is of the "confusion and resentment" developing world variety, probably picked up in a place like Somalia, where such resentments are common among the country's petty local intellectuals, given the failure of those states, especially in contrast to Israel and its success. They cloak their Jew-hatred in virtue-signaling about Palestinians and human rights, waving their torch through the boycott-divest-sanctions (BDS) movement, often claiming that their Jew-hate is merely "anti-Zionism."

Plame's has another feel to it — that of the old European elites, who've always leaned toward blaming the Jews for their own failures, too. Many eventually slid into national socialism, Aryan blond hair like Valerie's flying. It's an open train of anti-Semitism less often seen, but just as Jew-hating.

This goes to show that the anti-Semitism of the Democrats is taking on multiple forms. The failure of the House resolution against anti-Semitism, watered down with hate-talk of all sorts, treated equally, means in reality that Omar has gotten the gate open.

If Democrats don't nip this in the bud, they're going to see a slew of this garbage going on, ever new strains of the old Jew-hating virus. Since there's no sign they have any such intention of policing themselves, Republicans had better get it done for them the hard way.

Monica Showalter

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/another_antisemite_pops_up_to_run_with_the_democrats_for_senate_valerie_plame.html

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The Gaza Rebellion as the Arab Spring - Shoshana Bryen

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by Shoshana Bryen

Unable to come to terms either with Israel’s existence or with the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, Gaza is a pit of its own making

For the past year, Hamas has led Palestinians to demonstrate and riot on Fridays along the Gaza-Israel fence. The civilians, of which there are many, provide cover for rocket and incendiary device-wielding terrorists and those who would cross the fence into Israel. This Saturday, Hamas is calling for increased numbers at the fence building up to a massive demonstration on Friday 15 May.
Look past it.

This is a diversion from the active Palestinian revolt against Hamas. The people are complaining about dire living conditions, the brutal nature of Hamas rule, and the high living of Hamas officials. One brave woman told a journalist, "Hamas officials' children drive in luxurious cars, but I have four unemployed sons. All of Gaza are unemployed because of [leaders] Haniyeh & Sinwar. These officials care nothing about the poor people's necessities.”

Some people have cried, “We want to live!” Others said, “I have nothing to live for.”
Several reporters were arrested and brutally beaten (three were hospitalized) for covering the demonstrations, and the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that masked Hamas police were raiding homes and arresting hundreds of people. There is video of the brutal nature of the Hamas crackdown and the firing of live ammunition.

An Arab civilian rebellion against a repressive Arab government calls to mind the “Arab Spring,” a fleeting moment of hope in a long and ultimately unhappy saga of nasty governance.

Eight years ago, a Tunisian vegetable vender with an illegal cart was being harassed by a female policeman. It was a perfect storm of money, sex, and humiliation for the man, who set himself on fire. As the rebellion against economic privation, repressive rule, and wealthy rulers spread, the West naively believed the post-colonial Arab world was ready to take on the social and political norms of 21^st century Europe or America.

But the Arab Spring failed.

Arab governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan either fell or were overthrown. All were replaced with variants of autocratic, jihadist, kleptocratic thuggery. Syria and Yemen have promulgated and undergone horrific, criminal wars; Bahrain and Jordan are under pressure; Turkey and Lebanon have backslid into terror and jihad-supporting dictatorships.

The Palestinians should be different. For 25-plus years, since the Oslo Accords endowed the Palestinian Authority with governance over people of the West Bank and Gaza, the United States and European Union have lavished political power, attention, money, and infrastructure projects on this fraction of the Arab people. The Palestinians as a group were well-educated, secular, entrepreneurial, and tens of thousands of Palestinians had worked in Israel, a 21st-century economic success. If there was a test-bed for the construction of Western-style Arab democracy, this should be it. 

It was not to be.

In 2017, just before leaving office, the Obama administration participated in a French-led conclave devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” In the final communique, the parties “expressed their readiness to exert necessary efforts… in particular in the areas of political and economic incentives, the consolidation of Palestinian state capacities, and civil society dialogue.” Those could include:

• “A European privileged partnership; other political and economic incentives and increased private sector involvement… continued financial support to the PA in building the infrastructure for a viable Palestinian economy;
• “Supporting and strengthening Palestinian steps to exercise their responsibilities of statehood through consolidating their institutions and institutional capacities, including for service delivery;
• “Convening Israeli and Palestinian civil society fora, in order to enhance dialogue between the parties, rekindle the public debate and strengthen the role of civil society...”

In other words, after decades and billions, the Palestinians still lacked “infrastructure for a viable… economy,” and could not manage “service delivery,” or “exercise the responsibilities of statehood.” And there was no “civil society” to speak of.

Unable to come to terms either with Israel’s existence or with the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, Gaza is a pit of its own making. The PA squeezes Gaza financially and money from Western charities is siphoned off for weapons and terror tunnels. Israel takes up some of the slack, but violence against Israel is part of the Hamas raison d’etre. Riots, arson, rocket and terror attacks quite reasonably limit Israel’s willingness to be generous.

By announcing “special” demonstrations at the Gaza fence this week, Hamas hopes to focus its people away from the disaster of its rule and back onto an external enemy. Israel.

The rebellion continues, but Hamas is far from being overthrown. If it is -- due in no small measure to brave individuals willing to risk it all for a better life -- then recent experience suggests that the next Palestinian government will be no better than the present one.

Shoshana Bryen

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/the_gaza_rebellion_as_the_arab_spring.html

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